Method and apparatus to automatically create virtual sensors with templates

• US 20090055692A1
• Filed: 02/12/2008
• Published: 02/26/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/23/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Applied Materials Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Applied Materials Incorporated
• Inventors: Kroupnova, Natalia, Kozine, Mikhail B., Kril, Thorsten, Yanovich, Aleksey
• Granted Patent: US 8,812,261 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/57
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/41875 characterised by quality surveillance of production
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/00 Testing or monitoring of control systems or parts thereof monitoring of programme-control systems G05B19/048, G05B19/406
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/021 adopting a different treatment of each operating region or a different mode of the monitored system, e.g. transient modes; different operating configurations of monitored system
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0221 Preprocessing measurements, e.g. data collection rate adjustment; Standardization of measurements; Time series or signal analysis, e.g. frequency analysis or wavelets; Trustworthiness of measurements; Indexes therefor; Measurements using easily measured parameters to estimate parameters difficult to measure; Virtual sensor creation; De-noising; Sensor fusion; Unconventional preprocessing inherently present in specific fault detection methods like PCA-based methods
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0254 based on a quantitative model, e.g. mathematical relationships between inputs and outputs; functions: observer, Kalman filter, residual calculation, Neural Networks
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/02 Total factory control, e.g. smart factories, flexible manufacturing systems [FMS] or integrated manufacturing systems [IMS]

Abstract

A method and apparatus for automatically providing a virtual sensor have been described. In one embodiment, a method for automatically providing a virtual sensor includes receiving a plurality of virtual sensor templates from a server. The method further includes selecting a virtual sensor template from the plurality of virtual sensor templates. The selected virtual sensor template has an algorithm to provide a desired functionality. The method further includes selecting at least one parameter to configure the selected virtual sensor template. The method further includes automatically creating a virtual sensor associated with the selected virtual sensor template.

Claims

1. A method to automatically provide a virtual sensor in real-time, comprising:

selecting a virtual sensor template from a plurality of virtual sensor templates, the selected virtual sensor template having an algorithm to provide a desired functionality;

selecting parameters to configure the selected virtual sensor template; and

automatically creating a first virtual sensor associated with the selected virtual sensor template.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a plurality of virtual sensor templates from a server; and

sending the first virtual sensor to the server.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

automatically updating a list of virtual sensors by adding the first virtual sensor to the list of virtual sensors;

automatically collecting data associated with the first virtual sensor; and

automatically executing the first virtual sensor associated with the selected virtual sensor template in real-time based on the algorithm performing calculations on the collected data to generate an output of the first virtual sensor with the output being used by at least one data analysis module in real-time.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

acquiring the collected data from at least one of an external physical sensor associated with a machine tool, a second virtual sensor, a database, the machine tool, and a real sensor attached to the machine tool.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting parameters to configure the selected virtual sensor template further comprises:

selecting at least one data tag associated with a data source; and

selecting values of at least one parameter associated with the selected virtual sensor template.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein selecting the at least one data tag comprises filtering a list of data tag by at least one of location, kind, collection plan, and chart plan.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising adding the at least one selected data tag to be applied to the selected virtual sensor template.

8. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

analyzing the output of the first virtual sensor in real-time; and

generating an error notification in real-time based on the data analysis module analyzing the output of the first virtual sensor in real-time.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

adding a new virtual sensor template to a directory having the plurality of virtual sensor templates in real-time.

10. A machine-accessible medium including data that, when accessed by a machine, cause the machine to perform a method comprising:

selecting a virtual sensor template from the plurality of virtual sensor templates, the selected virtual sensor template having an algorithm to provide a desired functionality;

selecting parameters to configure the selected virtual sensor template; and

automatically creating a first virtual sensor associated with the selected virtual sensor template.

11. The machine-accessible medium of claim 10, further comprising:

receiving a plurality of virtual sensor templates from a server; and

sending the first virtual sensor to the server.

12. The machine-accessible medium of claim 10, the method further comprising:

automatically updating a list of virtual sensors by adding the first virtual sensor to the list of virtual sensors;

automatically collecting data associated with the first virtual sensor; and

automatically executing the first virtual sensor associated with the selected virtual sensor template in real-time based on the algorithm performing calculations on the collected data to generate an output of the first virtual sensor with the output being used by at least one data analysis module in real-time.

13. The machine-accessible medium of claim 12, the method further comprising:

acquiring the collected data from at least one of an external physical sensor associated with a machine tool, a second virtual sensor, a database, the machine tool, and a real sensor attached to the machine tool.

14. The machine-accessible medium of claim 10, wherein selecting parameters associated with the selected virtual sensor template further comprises:

selecting at least one data tag associated a data source; and

selecting values of at least one parameter associated with the selected virtual sensor template.

15. The machine-accessible medium of claim 14, wherein selecting the at least one data tag occurs by filtering a list of data tag by at least one of location, kind, collection plan, and chart plan.

16. The machine-accessible medium of claim 15, the method further comprising adding the at least one selected data tag to be applied to the selected virtual sensor template.

17. The machine-accessible medium of claim 10, the method further comprising:

analyzing the output of the first virtual sensor in real-time; and

generating an error notification in real-time based on the data analysis module analyzing the output of the first virtual sensor in real-time.

18. The machine-accessible medium of claim 10, the method further comprising:

adding a new virtual sensor template to a directory having the plurality of virtual sensor templates in real-time in order to create one or more new virtual sensors in real-time based on the new virtual sensor template.

19. A process monitoring apparatus, comprising:

a database to store raw data received from at least one manufacturing machine and to store analyzed data received from a statistical process control module; and

a calculated data tag manager communicatively coupled to the database, the calculated data tag manager is configured to send a plurality of calculated data tag templates to a client, to receive a first calculated data tag associated with a selected calculated data tag template from the client, and to update automatically a list of calculated data tags by adding the first calculated data tag to a list of virtual sensors.

20. The process monitoring apparatus of claim 19, wherein the SPC module is configured to automatically collect data associated with the first calculated data tag.

21. The process monitoring apparatus of claim 19, wherein the calculated data tag manager is configured to automatically execute the first calculated data tag associated with the selected calculated data tag template in real-time based on an algorithm to provide a desired functionality by performing calculations on the collected data to generate an output of the first calculated data tag with the output being used by at least one data analysis module in real-time for process monitoring.

22. The process monitoring apparatus of claim 19, further comprising a calculated data tag wizard that is configured to present a user interface, to receive an input to select a calculated data tag template from the plurality of calculated data tag templates provided by the calculated data tag manager.

23. The process monitoring apparatus of claim 22, wherein the calculated data tag wizard is configured to automatically create the first calculated data tag associated with the selected calculated data tag template.

25. The process monitoring apparatus of claim 23, wherein creating and executing the at least one calculated data tag in real-time occurs without having to restart a data analysis software application that performs functionality associated with the statistical process control module.

24. The process monitoring apparatus of 20, wherein the data is acquired from at least one of an external physical sensor associated with a machine tool, a second calculated data tag, a database, the machine tool, and a real sensor attached to the machine tool.